A successful business in any industry is largely based on their credibility. With credibility, clients will continue to patronize the company because they know they can be trusted. This is also the same for professionals wherein they can easily find a job or client if they can successfully establish their credibility.

Credibility takes a lot of time to be established. Companies and professionals have to work hard before they could be regarded as credible in the industry. But once you start gaining clients, your credibility in the industry will grow and recognition is now a lot easier. Slowly, your credibility will work to your advantage as more and more clients will recognize your abilities and skills. For companies, their credibility continues to be established as they continue to fulfill expectations by different companies.

Credibility in Social Networking

Successful social networking can also be based on credibility. When you are able to prove what you can and cannot do, you will be able to gain the trust and easily connect to more people.

But proving your credibility online is easier said than done especially for small business and companies. Saying that you can do this and that does not mean it is true. Everyone can say anything online and virtually no one will challenge what is said online. Although the message could be removed by directly confronting the fact, the damage has already been done.

There are two ways to establish credibility online. The first is to seek your client’s recommendation or support. This could be done in different social networking websites especially those that are dedicated to businesses and professionals. Through their recommendation, you will be able to improve you credibility.

The second method of establishing your credibility online is actually “showing” what you can do online. Social networking websites will also help you to do this. You can blog about the industry, take pictures and even create helpful videos. The latter (videos) is the most significant since this will give personalized experience for those who wanted to know your credibility.

Against Online Smearing

As already indicated, anyone can say anything online – including bad things about you and your company even though they are untrue. They can use different social networks to spread the message until everyone would have read the note regarding your credibility. If you do not protect yourself against this, your business and your credibility will be affected by someone you do not even know or do not even care if you react or not.

A smear campaign in different social networks is actually easy to deal with nowadays but they could be very difficult to track. When you see a blog or a video that is against you or for the purpose of destroying your name, you can immediately report the abuse of those blogs. You can ask people from your social network to tag the said posts as abusive in order for those posts will be removed by website administrators.

There is actually a dilemma by some professionals on answering the said insults made on different social networks. But to make it simple, here is the general rule. If the charges made against you and your company online are personal, it is not wise to answer them.

On the other hand, if they dispute some of the claims you have about your company productivity; it is smarter to answer the said charges with the right data. But limit your answer to the charges without getting back with insults. Always think like a professional to avoid further online confrontations.

Credibility as the Key

Above everything else, a business or a professional should take care of their credibility. It takes a lot of effort to establish oneself as someone in the industry but it only takes one event that could destroy them all. Your online presence in different social networks is part of being credible since this is the current platform where you can easily meet clients and update the current customers.

If you are being destroyed with false information through social networking, you should answer but with a professional tone. Stooping down to the defamer’s level will only do more harm than good especially if they are personal attacks. Always be professional online so that you can maintain your credibility no matter what they say.